Ben Affleck's playful dig at Tom Cruise's stunt work leaves 2025 SXSW Film Festival audience in splits

AUSTIN, TEXAS: Ben Affleck took a playful dig at Hollywood legend Tom Cruise's stunt work, which made the audience laugh at the 2025 SXSW Film Festival in Austin on Saturday, March 8.

Affleck, who recently divorced Jennifer Lopez, was seen on stage at the festival to promote his next film titled 'The Accountant 2', when the 'Mission Impossible' star's name came up, the Daily Mail reported.

Ben Affleck takes playful dig at Tom Cruise's stunt work

After the film's world premiere at Austin’s Paramount Theater, Ben Affleck recalled that he struggled with the action sequences in 'The Accountant 2' during a Q&A session at the festival.

"For me, the challenge, of course, was the months and months I spent training to line dance. It was a stunt for me," he shared.

He jokingly added, "Tom Cruise has nothing on me," causing the audience to burst into laughter. He then added, "In terms of line dancing," as per Variety.

Interestingly, Cruise is known to do his own stunts in movies, including 'Top Gun: Maverick' and the 'Mission: Impossible' movie series.

The 'Gone Girl' actor reprised his role as Christian Wolff in the sequel to the 2016 film 'The Accountant', which will see his character team up with his estranged brother (Jon Bernthal) to track down assassins.

However, Affleck admitted that shooting for the stunt scenes "did not come easy" to him.

According to Access Hollywood, he said, "It did not come easy for me, especially with a guy like Jon who's so spectacular at it. Cynthia [Addai-Robinson] did an incredible job, Daniella [Pineda] is super bada** in the movie, so I was just trying to keep up."

He added, "Gavin does a great thing with action sequences – which is really, they're not just action for its own sake. I don't think it's interesting just to see people shooting or a car flipping over or something blowing up just by itself."

He added that he feels "anybody could go to enjoy" the film and is "very proud" of his upcoming project.

Affleck said, "This is a movie where you really care about the people that are involved, and it's got an intelligence and a bit of humor and pathos to it. It's just a whole complete package. I really feel like this is a movie that anybody could go to enjoy." 

"I'm really proud of it. It's a really interesting set of characters. There are great performances in it, and I feel very confident saying, go see this movie. You won't be disappointed," he added.

Ben Affleck trolled for his cheeky dig at Tom Cruise

Several internet users took to the comments section of the Daily Mail website and trolled Ben Affleck for taking a playful dig at Tom Cruise's stunt work.

One reader asked, "Is Ben still drinking?" while another declared, "Beggin for attention."

One person stated, "He should look at his own backyard dirty laundry first instead of joking about others good actor," while another wrote, "I think somebody left this guy in a microwave."

One individual remarked, "Ben Afflected. He ALWAYS looks miserable. Don't think I've ever seen him smile!" while another added, "Ben is trying to recover the JLO curse! He will be fine."

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